"If we don't show up for work today and tomorrow, we can't collect our Christmas pay."

Swazis are also currently celebrating the traditional Incwala dance.

Civil servants were told they would not be paid if they participated in the strike, and most reported to work.
A union leader said that the very low turnout could be explained by the fact that it had been agreed with the authorities that essential staff such as nurses and fire fighters would not take part in the strike.

"This is part of a process. There will be another two-day stay-away next month, and every month until government agrees to reform," said Jan Sithole, secretary general of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions.

Aids money

The BBC's Thulani Mthethwa in Mbabane says that some workers may have been afraid to take part in the strike because paramilitary police are known to have assaulted striking workers in the past.

He says that more than 1,000 people took part in a demonstration in Manzini, Swaziland's industrial city, but that only 300 turned up in the capital.

"Away with King Mswati's government" and "No jets, divert the money to HIV/Aids" read signs held by the strikers.

The king is under pressure to modernise

An estimated 25% of adults in Swaziland are infected with HIV.

The pandemic has compounded a food crisis which threatens 270,000 people out of a population of one million.

The government tried to stop the strike through the courts, but failed.

The government recently said it would ignore a court ruling that the king's decrees were unconstitutional.

This followed a bitter row between the authorities and the judiciary in a court case brought by the mother of an 18-year-old girl allegedly abducted to become the king's 10th wife.

Bomb

Police say a petrol bomb was used overnight in the attack on the New Camp police compound east of Mbabane.

They say they suspect the Pudemo youth wing, after they found pamphlets with political messages demanding the king renounce his jet and restore the rule of law.

No arrests have been made.

Mr Masuku was acquitted on treason charges in August this year.

The 51-year-old politician, who suffers from diabetes, had spent a year in a high security prison.